Choice
by Ikedawg43
Summary: TWO-SHOT. They're being hunted. They met up with Cinder in Atlas and tried to get the Relic of Knowledge back. They failed. Emerald finds herself and Mercury in a familiar setting now, as she, Mercury, and Cinder are left with one last option. Go to Beacon. Find the Relic of Choice. Change it all. And try not to lose what matters in the process. COMPLETE.
1. Their Past

"How did you two come to fall out of Salem's service?" Cinder called out, breaking what had to have been at least two hours of walking through the Emerald Forest in silence. They were the first words spoken since abandoning the bullhead, if you discounted a few things grumbled as they decided which direction Beacon was in.

Neither Mercury nor Emerald answered immediately. Having lagged slightly behind, they were able to share a concerned glance with each other without Cinder noticing. While having the three of them back together may have seemed like old times, the group dynamic was foreign. It held the possibility for hostility, a fact which no party here was unaware of. Only necessity bound Mercury and Emerald to Cinder at the moment.

That's not to say there weren't similarities to their past situation. Cinder was still the leader, although now she was not the _unquestioned_ leader. She led because she had a plan, whereas before she led because neither of Merc nor Em would have dared stand up to her; both had been too afraid of retribution, or at least Mercury had been. Emerald cringed when she thought back to the fanatical desperation she served Cinder with, a cross between hero-worship and projecting her desire to be loved onto the woman. Her eyes softened as she shifted them back to the man who had broke her of that delusion not that long ago. Mercury didn't even know why he did it at the time, but he went out of his way to show Emerald that her hero-worship was idiotic and blind. By itself, that wouldn't have broken through to her, but what surprised them both was that Mercury broke Emerald of her desperate urge to be loved by Cinder—by filling that need himself.

_Sort of_, Emerald had to remind herself, just to make sure she kept a level head. They had talked about it before—though it was fairer to say that Emerald had finally gone through the emotional meltdown that had been building for years, and that Mercury had shocked them both by just… putting up with it. Or that was all that Mercury allowed himself to admit out loud, and maybe even to himself. They both knew that Merc had done more than just listen, and Emerald suspected that he discovered that he _wanted_ to help Emerald because he had a similar hole beaten into his own heart by his abusive father. It was why he had always detested Emerald back when they were at Beacon. Emerald's emotional stunting was obvious then—embarrassingly so, to look back on how bad it had been even a few weeks ago. Having Emerald around made Mercury uncomfortable, and they were only just now understanding that it was because Mercury didn't realize how similar of a position he was in.

Now, there was… _something_ between them. It might have been romantic, or platonic, or something entirely different born out of a necessity for each other. Neither had been able to define it, though neither would address it out loud; hell, Emerald would barely think about it herself, trying not to jinx it by dwelling on it. Mercury was the most important person to her now, only because she could function with him there, and him being there was helping her learn to function on her own—and in return, Mercury was learning to open himself up in ways that he once thought he hated.

There _might_ be something romantic there to it, but they were on the run when they discovered even what they had. If Emerald didn't wake up every morning relieved that they hadn't been killed in their sleep, if she didn't wake up each morning wondering if it was to be the last time, then maybe they'd have explored the possibility. Life was just too intense at the moment.

"We left," Mercury answered Cinder's question gruffly.

"Oh? Those who fail Salem do not tend to survive long, not without considerable strength," Cinder mused, though her voice lacked its usual smugness. It wasn't difficult to see _why_ Cinder's normal demeanor had been replaced by the bitter, angry, and desperate one that she wore now. She was describing her own situation, though by 'considerable strength' she meant 'the power of the Fall Maiden.' Even with that, there was a reason this alliance had been reborn out of desperation. "And those who _betray_ her… well, I've never heard of one who lived long enough to even think of regretting it."

"We didn't betray her," Emerald cut in. Cinder seemed so surprised that _she_ would risk talking to her in anything less than a subservient way that she deigned to look back at Em, cutting one eye at her out of curiosity. It was the first time that Emerald had signaled that she wasn't emotionally-dependent on Cinder anymore, at least as far as Cinder had noticed. "We just… decided to leave. We haven't done anything that would count as working against her."

"Yet," Cinder added on, returning her eyes forwards, in the direction of our path to Beacon. "Helping me in Atlas probably counts against you enough. If we can't get this Relic, your days are assuredly numbered… in the double digits, _if you're lucky._"

"Why? _You_ haven't betrayed her. Helping you still helps her goals, doesn't it?" Emerald asked back.

"I have failed her three times now," Cinder growled out, the words almost sounding painful for her to admit. Emerald and Mercury exchanged a worried glance and silently agreed to slow their pace slightly, allowing a little more room between them and Cinder. "Haven was a disaster. For all the damage we just did, Atlas still stands, and the Relic of Knowledge is as good as lost to us. Even my greatest achievement came up short: we brought Beacon to its knees and I became the Maiden, but we still failed to bring her Beacon's Relic."

"Those are _your_ failures," Mercury cut in, earning a glare from Cinder and a wide-eyed, pleading look from Emerald. _Don't start a fight we can't win, Merc!_ "Why would she hold those against _us?_"

Cinder held her glare for a few moments, before slowly returning her eyes to the path before her.

"Association, for one. You two have managed to be at my side for all three of them," Cinder answered, her voice calmer, but with an edge to it. "If you hadn't tried to flee her service, then she might have spared you. Really, you two have it much harder than I do right now. I'm only being hunted by Ruby at the moment."

Emerald was surprised that Cinder could even say the girl's name without devolving into a fit of rage, not since the girl stopped them in Atlas. Distracting herself by coyly taunting Mercury and her probably had something to do with that.

Idly, Emerald's fingers traced the scar on her stomach where Tyrian's weapons had almost disemboweled her. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Mercury rub his arm in a similar manner. They knew that when Tyrian gave them a ship to flee the Grimmlands with, they were agreeing to his cat-and-mouse game; they just didn't think that he would track them down within 48 hours! Em and Merc had kept their wits about them enough to know that even serious wounds were better than letting Tyrian get his poison into you, hence scars but not death. The only reason they had escaped was that Emerald had blacked out from how intensely she used her Semblance on Tyrian. Unfortunately, she had to use every trick she had been preparing for Tyrian, sending him through a gauntlet of embarrassment before her simulated Salem apparition, praying that Tyrian's loose screws and devotion to the woman would leave him susceptible to it.

She didn't know if it had worked or not. All she knew is that it had distracted Tyrian long enough for Mercury to carry her out of there and get lost.

A rustle of leaves came from behind a nearby tree, and a cold blast of air hit Emerald, sending a chill down her spine as she nervously whipped towards the sound of the noise. It would be a hell of a coincidence if Tyrian was careless enough to be detected as they were talking about him, right? _Or would it be a mind game Tyrian would love to engage in?_ Would—

Emerald realized by the way Cinder was peaking at her that Tyrian wasn't there. It was only a gust of wind rustling the leaves. Chances are, that gust of wind and the cold air that had blasted Emerald's neck came from the same source.

"Bitch."

Cinder laughed at Emerald's ire. They both knew that if Emerald had the ability to make Cinder think that Ruby and her crew were hiding nearby, that she'd do it in a heartbeat. _And she did, but Cinder wasn't likely to fall to her illusions._ Emerald wasn't great at tricking people into believing subtle illusions if they knew about Emerald's Semblance, a fact that made her combat effectiveness tank in recent fights. Now, she just went with the direct route while in battle, taking sight away entirely or distorting what someone saw. Sure, they would know something was up, but they wouldn't figure out how to see past it in time for Emerald to get a hit in.

"We didn't get the Relic last time we were at Beacon because we couldn't find it, right?" Mercury asked, stepping forwards towards Cinder and speaking up to take her attention off of Emerald. Em wondering if he even realized that he was protecting her by doing it, or if he was just going off instinct and would only realize it when pointed out to him later. He wasn't much of a thinker, but he had his redeeming qualities. _To her, at least_. "What's going to be different this time?"

"Last time, I was _interrupted_," Cinder growled, the memory of Ruby's first time injuring Cinder clearly being remembered. "We had no intel about where Beacon's Vault was, or if Beacon even employed such a device. Ozpin may well have just hidden his Relic somewhere on the schoolgrounds so that he did not need a Maiden to use it. Given its power, it is what I would do. This time around, we will not be in such a hurry."

"Unless little miss Silver Eyes catches up to us," Mercury countered. "They're sure to realize that we abandoned that bullhead before we crashed. Given how far into Vale we flew, they'll figure out where we're going eventually. We may not have time to search every inch of that place."

"Yes, well, _this_ is also different from last time," Cinder responded, holding up her Grimm arm to make a point. The appendage had spread to Cinder's chest, sprawling out to cover the skin half-way to her spine on her back, and covering most of her breast and ribs in the front. The fact that her breathing was not significantly hampered suggested that the corruption hadn't spread internally as far as it had externally, but it was only a matter of time. Cinder already felt weakened by the effects it had on her organs. She had even mused that Salem wasn't hunting her because the Grimm would consume her either way. "Grimm can sense the power housed in the Relics. They're drawn to it. I have significantly more Grimm to me now than the last time we were here. It should be a matter of concentration for me to narrow down our search once we arrive."

"What does the Relic do?" Emerald asked, hitting on the other main part of the plan.

"Like all Relics, it provides three things every century. For the Relic of Choice, it provides three choices," Cinder explained. "Or more specifically, it provides the chance to make a different choice. To go back in time to a choice you made in the past, and have the opportunity to choose differently."

"You're serious?" Mercury asked, giving Cinder a funny look. "_Time travel?_"

"In a sense. It returns you to your previous body, but with all the knowledge and experience you once had. When Ozma ended the Great War, he had the Relic of Choice, which means he likely used it in a way that we didn't see. My lien says that he fought the war until he lost, then used the Relic to go back and change the tide of the war when it was at its most critical."

"Why didn't he just go back and…?"

"Stop the Gods from leaving? Kill Salem before she could become who she is?" Cinder let the questions hang in the air for a few moments. The speed with which she had answered told Emerald that she had considered the question herself. "Perhaps the Relic limits you to the experience of your current body. Or perhaps he is an idiot. I suspect both to be true."

Emerald's eyes looked over to find Mercury looking at her with worry, though she didn't quiet catch the underlying meaning until he spoke.

"So we're just going to help you find the Relic so that _you_ can change the past?" Mercury asked, a dangerous edge to his voice as his fists clenched at his side. As his words sunk in to Em, her hands slid to her weapons slowly, just in case. Her Semblance primed itself. "What's in it for us, _nothing?_"

"Tell me, if you broke off this alliance right now, would you survive a week? A month? Even if you escaped Tyrian, do you believe that you could find mercy from Ruby after killing her friends?"

The words hung in the air, unanswered and unchallenged.

"I will take the Relic, go back to our time in Beacon, and ensure that our first mission succeeds. That will change the trajectory of everything, and you two will never find yourselves in such a dire straight. If you have a better option, take it. Otherwise, shut up and walk."

* * *

"Keep a low profile. There's no point in alerting the Grimm if we don't have to."

Emerald wanted to ask about that. Cinder had no qualms with using her Grimm arm and the Grimm bug inside it to ward off Grimm in the Emerald Forest. Why would the Grimm in Beacon be any different? She looked to Mercury, who seemed similarly lost in thought on the subject, but he shook those thoughts free and focused himself on the task at hand.

_Maybe Cinder was underplaying how much Salem would be after her._ The Grimm would consume Cinder either way at this point, but Salem was not the kind to sit back and wait patiently if she did not need to. Maybe Cinder was just concerned that all of the major Grimm had somehow been warned not to obey her commands anymore, or worse, that they would all target her on sight. Maybe her Grimm bug was a double-edged sword now.

"Where do we look first, then?" Emerald asked in a low voice, as if the frozen Grimm Wyvern would finally wake if it could hear Emerald's voice all the way from the cliffs.

"The Vault. Without an elevator, I'll go down alone. You two stand guard here." Cinder turned her head back to make sure they were both still with her, before she began to walk forward towards the school. "I don't know how long it will take me to grow accustomed to… sensing for the Relic with my arm. Be prepared to wait a while."

* * *

Cinder jumped down the elevator shaft without much hesitation. She appeared more agitated than anything, and Emerald wondered if that was how stress manifested itself with her. If that were true, then there hadn't been a day that Emerald knew the woman where she wasn't at least partially stressed.

"So do you want first watch, or…?" Mercury called out, plopping down against the wall near the elevator shaft and crossing his hands behind his head. "Because I would love to take a nap right now."

"We're in hostile territory surrounded by Grimm, including the frozen dragon still spawning Grimm just above our heads, we're being hunted by Salem's… psychopathic assassin, if Tyrian doesn't get us then Ozpin's new reincarnation and company will, not to mention that they're hot on our tail since Atlas… and you're able to _sleep_ in a time like this!?"

"Well, if you're not going to shut up, then probably not," Mercury answered glibly, giving Emerald just a hint of a smirk. "But if you're taking watch, then yeah, I could probably fall asleep. Don't be jealous."

She was, actually, a little bit. Emerald couldn't shake the slight queasiness in her stomach that had dogged her ever since… well, it had been dogging her since Tyrian started hunting them, but she suspected it had started when she first thought Cinder had died. There was apprehension there. A worry that things weren't going to be okay, one that predated knowing Cinder but instead had been with her since her time on the streets. Emerald had no delusions that things always worked out; in fact, it seemed they rarely did. The worst was far more likely than the best, and their current situation didn't exactly inspire her with confidence.

She was scared. She was scared and she knew it. She knew she wasn't the only one, either. Emerald knew enough about Mercury now to know that he didn't confront his own feelings, or at least would hide it if he did so. Mercury would try to ignore those feelings, to push them away and act like he was above them. Right now, he was trying to force himself to take a nap, rather than dwell on the fact that he was scared too. He wasn't doing a very good job fooling Emerald that he was anywhere close to falling asleep, and he wasn't doing a very good job hiding his own fear.

Wordlessly, Emerald sulked over to where Mercury was seated, sliding her back down the wall to sidle right up next to him. Mercury cracked one eye open at her, giving her a curious look.

"Can I help you?" he asked her, trying to deflect and play dumb.

"Don't act like you don't know what's going on," Emerald snapped at him weakly. "Just shut up and put your arm around me."

She felt pathetic for having to ask for it, knowing that Merc enjoyed making things difficult for her normally. Her nerves were beginning to fray, though, and with every passing second she felt like her enemies were drawing closer and closer. Their time remaining was limited, and counting down rapidly. She just wasn't in any state of mind for their normal games. She needed the Mercury that existed deep inside him, the man that had accidentally freed her from her broken mind, not the boy she enjoyed quipping with. Emerald was hoping that she looked as scared as she felt, so that Mercury would understand without her having to say it.

That Mercury allowed himself to be commanded so easily meant to her that he might have gotten the message. His arm wrapped around her shoulders and trailed down to her waist, and she leaned in to put her head against the side of his chest, trying for all she was worth to let her fears melt away. It was possible that Mercury didn't realize how much she needed this—or how much _he_ probably needed it too—but the way he drew her in a little more tightly than was necessary told her all she needed to know, and it wasn't worth dwelling on.

"Do you think this will work?"

"What, Cinder using… her arm to find the Relic?"

"A-All of it," Emerald answered, her nerves only seeming to get worse. "What happens when we find the Relic? How does Cinder going back change things for _us?_"

"I've… been thinking about that, too," Mercury added softly. "As soon as she goes back, none of this will exist anymore. It just…resets everything."

"That's not what I'm sca—that's not what concerns me," Emerald corrected herself, though she was fooling neither of them. Mercury's hand rubbed her side idly to comfort her. It should have embarrassed her that he picked up on her slip, and it should have embarrassed her even more that he knew she needed comfort right now, but… she couldn't bring herself to care. Emerald was _tired_. "It's _when_ she goes back that I'm worried about. She could…"

"You're scared that she's going to go back to Beacon?"

"I _know_ that she's going to go back to Beacon," Emerald answered, very specifically not admitting being scared. "What if she… takes advantage of me? We both know that I wasn't… that I was—"

"I know."

"This is Cinder we're talking about. If it would be useful, then she would take advantage of me even more this time—"

"I know."

"I-I don't want to be her again! I've made so much progress now, and if Cinder goes back, she's going to undo it all. I don't want to be that Emerald again—"

"_I know_, Em," Mercury whispered as comfortingly as he could, drawing Emerald in a little tighter. "I know."

"How are you so calm about this?"

"I'm not calm, I'm…" he trailed off, unwilling to commit to the words. Resigned. Defeated. Tired. He avoided the words entirely, instead shifting the topic suddenly. "Do you think we could take Cinder?"

"W-What?"

"I don't, but let's say we could. Best case scenario, you become the Fall Maiden, and we try to defect to Ruby's group. Do you think they'd take us?"

"After what you did to their healer? No," Emerald responded, cutting her eyes at Mercury to check on him.

"Hey, it's not my fault that I killed him. He shouldn't have given away so much of his Aura. Generosity can get you killed, after all."

Emerald elbowed Mercury in the ribs softly, only getting a laugh out of Merc. If they did have to throw themselves at Ruby's feet, Mercury's life would depend on him _not_ saying anything like that.

"They might take me in as a Maiden, but they wouldn't let me bring you," Emerald spoke again, returning to the discussion. "That's not good enough."

"I don't know, if the roles were reversed, I'd take it." Merc cut his eyes at her, trying and failing to hide his slight smirk. It wasn't his malicious or mean smirk that he used so much; it was just a hint of the smirk that Em had found that she enjoyed seeing on his face. It was cheeky, but light-hearted and good-natured. He looked like he was proud of the joke because he thought that Em would take it as a joke, not because it would piss her off. The last time they were here at Beacon, she would have accepted his words as a joke that he 100% meant. Now, they rang hollow to them both, and the way Mercury was looking at her with that smirk made it obvious the only purpose of saying it was to rile her up. He didn't mean it.

"Well, there's no chance that _you_ are gonna become a Maiden, so I guess we'd never find out what you would do. Like it or not, you're stuck with me."

"Hey, we've only confirmed that _one_ of us is a girl so far. You still haven't seen me naked, so you never know what I might be hiding down there. You could reach down and find—"

"I am _not_ giving you a handjob in the middle of Grimm territory while we're being hunted, jackass!"

"Who said anything about a handjob?" Mercury responded, trying to play innocent. "I'm just saying that you haven't seen me naked, but I _have_ seen you naked—still not apologizing for that, by the way. _Totally_ your fault."

"_My_ fault!?" Emerald wanted to burst. "You walked in on me naked!"

"Yeah, but the door was unlocked."

"_The door didn't have a lock!_"

"How was I supposed to know you were naked?"

"_I was in the shower!_" Emerald finally did burst, though she managed to keep her voice down. Somewhat.

"Technically, you were getting out of the shower," Mercury supplied in a 'helpful' manner, grinning madly as each word only set Emerald off further. "Are you accusing me of waiting outside the door until I heard the water go off so that I could time it perfectly to see you stepping out of the shower dripping wet and butt-ass naked?"

"_Yes!_" Emerald hissed, not letting his sarcasm fool her. They both knew very well that was exactly what Mercury had done.

"Still sounds like it was your fault."

"_W-What!?_"

"I mean, I walked in and made eye contact with you. You had every opportunity to make me go blind with your Semblance."

"I fucking hate you," Emerald growled, sulking back into the wall. She tried to push away from Mercury just to make a point, but he laughed at the feeble attempt and pulled her back to his side. She deigned not to resist.

"I did not expect your nipples to be green."

"_They're not!_"

"Prove it."

Emerald dug her elbow in a lot harder than the previous time, and for good measure gave Mercury a visual hallucination of super old people having kinky, leather-and-whips kind of sex—it was the worst thing she could think of off the top of her head. She blamed Mercury for _that_ being the first thing she could think of in this moment. Mercury stiffened, his face scrunching up in disgust and horror.

"Okay, okay! You win!" Emerald smirked, settling back into a comfortable position at Mercury's side and letting her illusion end. As much as she hated him sometimes, she couldn't bring herself to be all that mad right now. She had silently pleaded for him to distract her from everything, and he had delivered, hadn't he? If she was daydreaming of ripping his head off figuratively, then she wasn't dreading having her own ripped off, literally. "I admit that your nipples are _certainly_ not green."

_Breathe, Emerald. Just breathe._

* * *

"Is this really our only option?"

Mercury opened his mouth to speak again with some quip, but swallowed the words when he noticed Emerald wasn't playing along anymore. His efforts to distract her had been successful, just not completely so. "What, letting Cinder go back in time and hoping that things somehow work out better for us?"

Emerald's uncomfortable silence answered that. It sounded a lot like 'yes.'

"If you have any suggestions, Em, I'm all ears."

* * *

Cinder shot out of the elevator shaft without warning, riding a wave of flame protruding out of her palms that only served to emphasize her arrival even more. Emerald and Mercury jumped to their feet, more surprised than anything.

"Did you find it?" Emerald asked, hoping the question would stop Cinder from commenting on the two of them slacking off—or what Cinder would perceive as them slacking off. Neither had fallen asleep or even kept their eyes closed, but Emerald didn't want to have to explain why they looked so comfortable there on the floor when they were supposed to be lookouts.

"No," Cinder answered, eyes staring off in the distance. "But I was close. I know where to look."

* * *

Beacon's library. Apparently.

Of all of Beacon's facilities, this was the one with the least amount of mess to it. Entire rows of bookcases still stood pristine, and while there was some evidence of the chaos of the Fall of Beacon, it was localized to a few spots. Emerald sniggered as she realized that Beacon's students must not have used the library, so there was no one here to cause damage during the panic.

Her eyes drifted sideways. Of course, neither she nor Mercury had ever intentionally spent time in the library. Cinder had, but only to do research or to use a public-access computer that couldn't be traced.

"Why… why the _library?_" Emerald asked, breaking the silence as she and Mercury followed Cinder around aimlessly. "If it was the Relic of Knowledge, then maybe it would make sense."

"Because no one uses the library," Mercury answered cheekily. "If no one is here, no one can stumble across the Relic on accident."

"I suspect the opposite, Mercury," Cinder replied, giving Mercury a flat frown. "Do try to leave the thinking to those who are more suited to it."

Emerald snickered at that, and Mercury waited until Cinder's back was turned to scowl at her.

"When Beacon was built, libraries were actually a popular place to be. No scrolls or such," Cinder went on to explain. "Which makes it impossible to dig up under the library without drawing attention."

"_Under?_"

No sooner had Emerald asked, Cinder reared up with her Grimm arm and brought it down on the marble flooring they stood on. The ground cracked with the force, and after a few more blows, small pieces of rubble started to fall down, revealing a hollow cavity beneath it. Cinder poured water the cracks from a bottle then froze it with her powers, causing the ice to expand and weaken the marble further.

Once there was a hole about the width of a watermelon, Cinder kneeled down next to it. The hole revealed a small cavern, barely a foot wide but deep enough that they couldn't see the bottom. It was the sort of thing that you wouldn't just stumble upon easily, not unless you knew exactly where it was placed… or could sense the power coming from it.

"We're close enough. Keep an eye out."

Mercury did so (or at least pretended to), but Emerald didn't take her eyes off of Cinder. The woman extended her Grimm arm by several lengths, sending it down into the chasm below.

Cinder's eyes closed and her face contorted as she fumbled around with her Grimm arm. Emerald could gauge how close she was getting to finding the Relic by the way Cinder's grimace ebbed and flowed. It seemed that she had almost found it when Mercury's hand weakly tapped her, distracting Emerald momentarily.

Cinder's face lit up as she found her goal, and she stood up to begin reeling in her arm. Mercury's hand softly tapped Emerald again, irritating the girl.

Cinder's arm finally emerged from the chasm, holding a very old and tattered looking box. It was no bigger than a shoebox, and came with no prizes for guessing its contents.

"_Emerald_," Mercury hissed quietly and urgently, tapping her once more. The tap irritated Emerald to the point the she finally snapped at him.

"What—!?"

Emerald was cut off as the sound of a bullet whizzed by her head, striking Cinder's Grimm arm and nearly tearing it off entirely. The sound of the gunshot followed immediately after, and Emerald's blood ran cold; she recognized the sound of Ruby's sniper after having been shot at by it continuously.

_Ambush._

Emerald whipped her head around, trying to identify where her attackers were—she didn't need to know _who_, not after that sniper round. She didn't have time to look around, and would have likely been knocked out then and there by Yang Xiao Long if Mercury hadn't shoved her out of the way. Yang's fist came down, shattering the marble where Emerald had just been standing, and sending shockwaves all the way to the hole in the ground by Cinder, cracking marble along the way.

She rolled out of the way and frantically drew her weapons, firing at Xiao Long only for her target to wisp away as the bullets tore through her. Emerald recognized this effect and turned to find where Belladonna was. Emerald was still in the process of healing a gash on her calf from the cat-girl's daggers, and was not looking to fall for the same trick twice.

Belladonna had rushed in from Emerald's side, driving a wedge between her and Mercury that forced her to break further away from both him and Cinder. Emerald lashed out with her Semblance, but couldn't latch on to the girl's mind, telling her that the girl before her was yet another shadow-clone. Emerald lazily put one bullet through the clone to confirm her suspicions as she scanned around the room, looking for where Belladonna was—or where anyone was, for that matter.

It gave her time to scan the field, and she did not like what she saw. The ambush had allowed them to pick the matchups as they wanted, and they didn't waste them. Xiao Long had Mercury in a one-on-one, and she didn't like his chances there, not since she kicked his ass in Atlas. Belladonna had isolated her, and she could tell why, since the girl's clones made it difficult for Em to use her Semblance on her. Cinder was the best off of them all, but even that didn't seem to be going great. Ruby had made the shot count and Cinder was only moving her Grimm arm when she had to. Worse, she was paired up against Valkyrie and, more importantly, the boy with the anti-Grimm Semblance. The same one that Cinder found interfered with her Grimm arm's ability to 'see' her enemies; normally, the arm did most of the work as Cinder willed it to, using its own senses and reactions. With that boy around to mask their signatures from it, it was little more than a floppy noodle for Cinder to swing at them.

Cinder was still a Maiden, but a one-armed Maiden in pain and tired from her journey, in an ambush she wasn't prepared for. It was almost the same circumstances they had defeated Amber under.

Ruby was no where to be seen, but the occasional sniper round that pinged off of Cinder's aura suggested that she was elevated enough to see the fights.

_Where's the other one?_ There was one more that should be here. Emerald couldn't recall a name but she knew it was Ozpin's reincarnation, which was a large enough threat that it worried Emerald when she couldn't locate him.

The sound of glass shattering in Cinder's direction broke Emerald's focus, causing the girl to look in the direction of the noise in shock.

"Neo?"

No sooner had Emerald said the words did she receive a sharp kick to the back of the head, knocking her forward onto her hands and causing her vision to blur momentarily. She scrambled to her feet in search of her attacker, but Neo—if Neo _had_ been the one to kick her—had already floated back towards Cinder. The mute had been on their side in Atlas, but when that all went to hell, she had disappeared. How they convinced Neo to side with _Ruby_, she didn't know, but—

Emerald reacted to a noise to her side just in time to lean back and avoid taking one of Belladonna's daggers to her throat. Emerald fired her revolver at the girl but held back on her Semblance, instead waiting for the clone to fade to dust. Belladonna was exposed on flat ground now and Emerald continued to pelt her with soft fire until the girl gave up on wasting her aura with the clones, instead charging in and locking blades with Emerald.

Emerald grinned, finally having a target for her Semblance, and gave her opponent an illusion that transformed Emerald into Xiao Long. It was a tried and true method, forcing her opponent to try to harm those they loved most. It always slowed them down enough for Emerald to make up for the skill gap that normally hampered her in duels.

Almost always, Emerald came to find out as Belladonna slammed her forehead directly into "Yang's" forehead, blurring Emerald's vision again. Her guard drop and Belladonna scored nasty strikes across Emerald's chest and stomach, and Emerald was tripped by an outstretched cane as she stumbled backwards. Emerald was unlikely to get up in a hurry with the splitting headache that was forming, the exhaustion of the last few days, and the strain of nearly being out of aura, but the kick to the side of the head from Ozpin's vessel made sure she was staying down.

"Your little trick doesn't work so well the second time," Belladonna scoffed at her as she walked over to stand above Emerald, gloating.

"Stick to the plan, Blake!" Ozpin's vessel called out in an annoyingly-boyish voice. "Go help Yang."

Dust kicked up as Mercury was thrown on the ground next to Emerald unceremoniously. A low groan that escaped the boy's lips calmed Emerald down slightly. _He's alive._ They both were, for the moment. They certainly weren't going anywhere, not with their opponents guarding over them and not with Mercury's legs in a mangled mess. His opponent had clearly gotten her hands on them, and without a Semblance of his own, Mercury couldn't win a fight against someone on equal footing with him.

"Go help _who_?" Xiao Long's smug voice called out, though it had a venom to it that felt directed at her and Mercury. Emerald could feel the girl's hatred. Despite that, they put it aside to focus on their task, all eyes scanning the room to find their last target.

Cinder was in rough shape, at least by Cinder's standards. At her best, Neo was a match to Cinder's skill, and the mute did not seem to lack motivation. Add to that an opponent who could negate Cinder's use of her Grimm arm and a third who added the pressure of a massive hammer, and Cinder was left with no choice but a liberal application of her powers.

Part of the library was already on fire, and Cinder continuously shot ice on the floor around her to stop anyone from charging her without slipping. Wind constantly blew the smoke from the fire into the faces of her opponents, yet they still pressured Cinder more than she liked. She needed to take Neo out of the fight, but couldn't find the girl for her Semblance.

Cinder resorted to letting her powers do the work for her. She summoned massive amounts of lightning, sending it flying in several directions in the hopes that it would arc towards Neo and break the girl's focus over her Semblance. Just as it looked like she had caught Neo, glass shattered to reveal that she had hit Valkyrie instead. It wasn't the intended target, but it was enough to put her down for the fight, which would even the numbers out in Cinder's favor a little.

It… did not. Valkyrie surged forth with an impossible burst of speed, swinging her hammer with such force that not even Cinder really knew what was happening. She only managed to avoid getting knocked through a wall by ducking under and flipping Valkyrie over her, and even then, all of the lightning that Cinder had previously shot out was released back on her when they made contact. Cinder was momentarily stunned, her muscles rigid under her the electricity.

"Ruby, _now!_"

A red streak dropped down from the roof directly above Emerald. Mercury saw it and reacted, moving himself slightly so that the blade Ruby lead with impaled his lung, not his heart.

"That was for Jaune!"

Ruby's eyes whipped towards Emerald, freezing her in place. The girl's eyes pulsed with anger as they began to glow white, leaving Ruby looking like a ghastly apparition come to take Emerald away for good. The analogy may not have been far off.

Ruby didn't attack Emerald, though. She left the sword sticking out of Mercury, who to Emerald's horror was not doing well with having a sword sticking out of him. Ruby drew one of the three other weapons she was carrying—a rapier—and as she did so Emerald realized what was going on. Ruby was using her fallen teammates' weapons. She was psyching herself up to use her eyes, and the only person here that would harm was Cinder. _And with her eyes already glowing that much, it was practically a foregone conclusion at this point. _ They had spent so much effort in Atlas and Haven keeping Ruby away from Cinder; their plans had revolved around it. Now it appeared that their enemies had a plan of their own.

With a burst of red, Ruby charged down Cinder. The woman couldn't even properly fight back; Ruby's eyes began to shine brighter with every inch she grew closer, and it was clearly putting Cinder through agony. The woman didn't even block, instead falling to the ground clutching her arm. Cinder's head flicked up momentarily, and in a last-ditch attempt she summoned however much fire she could focus on in that moment.

Ruby charged through it heedlessly. Cinder's aura held enough to avoid being run through by the rapier, but it flickered and died after that. Her Grimm arm was half-shriveled and was smoking, and she could barely make it up to her feet.

"That was for Weiss!"

The rapier fell to the ground at Ruby's side. The girl took one of two scythes off her back, keeping it in sword form. She spun around and charged Cinder one more time, and Cinder met it head on as best she could.

Ruby chopped through Cinder's collar, cutting across until she cleaved cleanly out the other side. If Cinder still had an arm on that side, she would have probably cut through that too.

"And that was for uncle Qrow!"

Only seconds after Cinder's head hit the floor, Ruby convulsed strangely as her eyes began to flicker with a different power. Flames framed her solid white eyes as Cinder's powers transferred to her last thoughts. The Maiden's powers looked like an afterthought to Ruby's Silver Eyes.

No one could look away from what they were witnessing. Emerald wouldn't have, had she not felt a hand grab her ankle gently. She looked down to find Mercury trying to get her attention, weakly trying to point to something. He was in bad shape and wouldn't last long, but he refused to accept the tears in Em's eyes, instead trying to point while remaining subtle. One arm stretched out at something just past Em, the other holding on to her for dear life.

She followed it to find the box from earlier, the one with the Relic. It was within arm's reach for Emerald, and the lid was so old it had busted open. She could _see_ part of the Relic. Emerald just needed an opportunity to reach out and take it, and then…

And then die in Mercury's arms with a Relic she didn't know how to use?

_Fuck it._ She didn't have a better option. She didn't have time for coherent plans, only last-ditch prayers.

"Ruby, behind you!" Xiao Long screamed out in horror, unaware that Emerald had given her an illusion. It was a stupid one, where Tyrian was charging behind the girl with that creepy smile on his face and an exaggerated stream of venom dripping from his robotic tail, but Xiao Long wasn't expecting it and it caught her off-guard. Everyone flinched and looked behind Ruby in confusion.

Belladonna figured it out, but a fraction of a second to late. Emerald could hear the whizz through the air as Belladonna's blade neared her head, but she already had her fingers around the Relic. It was a crown, or a tiara, or a hat—something meant to go on your head; in that moment Emerald's instincts took over. She jammed the thing down onto her head.

* * *

After a few seconds of nothing happening, Emerald opened her eyes. She wasn't dead, she…thought. Everything around her was black, but she didn't _feel_ dead.

She stood up from where she was huddled on the floor, only to discover that there _was_ no floor. She was standing on… black. It was empty, but it supported her regardless. She made to rub her forehead, trying to both ease her headache from earlier and try to make sense of what this was, and her fingers came across the Relic she was still wearing.

Suddenly, it made a lot more sense. Was this—?

"_Emerald Sustrai,"_ came the disembodied voice of an old man, _"welcome. Do you have a Choice in mind that you would like a second chance at?"_

"You…? You're the Relic?"

"_I am,"_ it replied, before manifesting itself in front of her. It appeared as an old man, hunched over from age with a grey, frazzled beard that neared the floor—or neared its feet, since there still was no floor. "I may grant the chance to change a Choice one more time this era. It has been over eighty years since I have done so, and significantly longer since I have done it for someone not named Ozma. Or whatever he calls himself in this life."

"I… I don't know what decision to choose," Emerald admitted shyly. In truth, she hadn't considered the option much, assuming instead that she wouldn't have the opportunity. She had spent her last moments of peace bantering with Mercury to take her mind off of things, and she struggled to regret that.

"Allow me to help."

The old man disappeared, and a few moments later the void around her filled to life with moving images of her life. They clashed, flashed, replayed, and spliced seemingly at random, with different parts playing at impossible speeds and others frozen in time. Slowly, they began to whittle down, some scenes going away entirely as more important ones grew larger.

In the end, only two remained.

"_A tragic life, though circumstances are never the strong excuses we think they are,"_ the voice announced. _"I have seen the entirety of your existence. These two moments are what I find to be the most critical for your trajectory and for what you desire."_

"You can… do that?" Emerald asked, taken aback.

"_I was created for the purpose of helping humanity fix its past mistakes. Should it surprise you that I am good at it?"_

No, she guessed not. She still felt well out of her element.

"_These moments are my suggestion, but you are free to pick any decision, should you wish. Game the system, as it were; there have been those who chose to relieve their earliest remembered decision, becoming a five-year-old boy to choose a different dessert."_

"Did they regret it?" Emerald asked. She knew enough to know that asking genies for wishes was a bad idea. It was always rigged against you.

"_No, it is not always rigged against you,"_ the Relic's voice echoed and subverted her very thoughts. _"As he intended, his current mind was transported back into the body of his five-year-old self. He was able to change the world as he had desired when he asked for it. Such _is_ my purpose. You will find no cruel tricks of fate here._"

Emerald wasn't convinced, but… well, she was convinced. It wasn't as if she had anything to lose now.

"Show me."

The world around Emerald warped until she was surrounded by an experience she remembered. A scene vividly reimagined and frozen in time. It was the moment when she and Mercury met up with Cinder in Atlas while running from Tyrian, when Cinder offered them a chance at redemption by helping her steal back the Relic of Knowledge. An alliance of convenience that seemed their best option at the time.

"_You have discerned well. My first suggestion is also my most recent to have transpired. Relive this moment and turn down Cinder's offer. You met her in a public space where no party could attack the other easily, not even this Neo with her Semblance. All you must do is convince Mercury to walk away, and the two of you may continue your life. You will still be hunted by Tyrian, but you stand a better chance at surviving that than you do at the present time."_

Emerald reached out and touched herself. Rather than go through the apparition, her hand met solid flesh. If the scene in front of her weren't frozen in time, Emerald imagined that her other self would flinch at the sudden touch. She pulled away, looking off around her and wondering where she should assume the Relic to be at.

"My other option?"

The scene changed instantly. It was a familiar one. A moment burned into her mind and her heart. It was the first moment that she began to realize that Cinder had been manipulating her, and that Mercury cared more than Cinder had, despite all odds. Where Mercury had snapped, gone after her angrily and yelled at her. Talked about his father, about how he had been broken. Revealed to her that Cinder wasn't who Emerald needed her to be.

It was also the moment where Mercury held himself back from truly hurting her. Where he had tried to help her without even knowing that he was doing it.

And it was where Tyrian challenged them to flee, with the promise that he would hunt them.

"_A safe option for you. Go back and defy Tyrian's wishes. Stay in Salem's employ. It might well put you on a collision course with the same people who have defeated you now, but the circumstances would be different. It gives you the chance to change the outcome, and it still gives you the chance to develop yourself and Mercury."_

"Those are… the best options?"

"_They are the most logical. They give you the best chance to change the outcome to something better."_

"That's… that's not good enough."

Emerald didn't want a better outcome. Emerald wanted the best outcome. She wanted out of this entirely. She wanted to control her own fate. She didn't want to be dependent on someone, she didn't want to _need_ someone to be there for her to function. She wanted to have people there because she _wanted_ them, not needed them.

Emerald wanted a better life for herself, and… for Mercury. And she knew where that began.

The environment around her changed as soon as she had decided it. She was standing in an alley now, over a year younger. Her hair was shorter, her clothes ragged and her weapon unpainted. Cinder stood before her.

"_Are you sure?"_

"Yes."

* * *

"I find myself in need of good help, and you seem like you need the work. What do you say?" Cinder's voice was low enough not to draw attention to our alleyway, but was seductive. "Come with me, and you'll never be hungry again."

Emerald snarled at the woman, and leveled her revolvers at her.

"Not this time."

* * *

**I took a week off from writing MoNT to rest and recharge my writing muscles/desires and underestimated how much I could write when an idea struck me. Rather than starting an entire new story based around Emerald traveling back in time to change things, I decided to confine it to a one shot.**

**The hardest part was writing Mercury in a likable way. I feel like I have sinned or something.**

**-Ikedawg43**


	2. Their Future

**Yeah, so a follow-up idea for this one-shot has been stuck in my head in some form or fashion ever since writing the original one-shot. This got finished in part because I kept thinking about it more and more until the idea was too fleshed out to not write, and in part because I was encouraged by some guys in a Discord server to write a follow-up. **

**Ironically, this is interrupting the upload schedule of the story for which that Discord is dedicated... ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯**

**This is **_**not**_** going to be like my first RWBY fic, which started as a one-shot… then became a two-shot… then became a full story. ****The difference between them is that I _wasn't_ struck by an entire, fleshed-out plot idea for this one like I was for **_**Wash It Away**_**.**

**Besides, I like how this ends too much to write anything beyond it.**

**\- Ikedawg43**

* * *

Emerald walked through the streets in search of food, but she was more enveloped by her thoughts than her search. When she was little, searching for food meant hunting to find some dumpster with a fresh batch of scraps that hadn't been picked over yet, or maybe putting all her strength into fooling some clerk into thinking that she had a little bit of cash to pay with. By the time she had first reached the age she was now—around seventeen, though without any real records or even a birthday, so that number was malleable—she had more than enough control over her Semblance to move to petty theft. Interestingly enough, though, when the Relic of Choice had let her restart her life inside her seventeen-year-old body, she had retained the extra few years of control over her Semblance and Aura. Emerald found it strange that the Relic had been so… helpful. Even growing up on the streets, she had been conditioned to think of genies as beings that granted wishes and tried to screw you over on some technicality—malicious creatures, not benevolent ones. Instead, Choice had seemed to go out of its way to help her out.

Now, "searching for food" meant looking for some restaurant that sounded good. She had stolen cash to spend, and if she hadn't, then some poor waiter would be tricked into thinking she did. Emerald would have made _some_ effort to ensure that whoever did pay had it coming, whether because they were a jerk or seemed well-off. She had never before felt bad about what she had to do to others in order to survive. Meeting Cinder, fighting to destroy Beacon, serving the Queen of the Grimm… all of that had changed Emerald's perspective somewhat. Emerald used to fight to survive, but she had helped end that same fight for so many people. She didn't consider herself a good person—never did—but she couldn't bring herself to cause suffering to those who didn't deserve it.

She didn't even really notice or care _where_ she walked in search of food. Emerald's mind was working overdrive on what she would do next. She was in Mercury's hometown, one of the larger subsidiaries to Vale's capital. Marcus Black's residence was outside of town, and Emerald planned to go by the next morning and… _and do what, exactly?_ Introduce herself to Mercury's abusive father as a girl from a future where he was dead, and demand that he release his son to her? _What good what that even do?_ Mercury wasn't a warm person even on the best of days, and he'd tell her to go to hell if she tried to drag him anywhere, regardless of whether it would get him away from his father.

Emerald snorted a laugh to herself as a thought crossed her mind: if she hooked up with Mercury or even just flashed her tits to him, he'd follow her like a puppy. It wasn't the worst idea in the world, but Emerald wasn't certain it would accomplish much. She didn't know much about Marcus Black, but what she did know didn't paint a great picture: alcoholic, abusive, hard ass, controlling, hateful. She didn't want to bet that he wouldn't hunt Mercury down once he left. _There would need to be a more permanent solution._

Besides, this Mercury was the one that Cinder had recruited. Em had no doubts he'd sleep with her given the opportunity, but she'd never get through to him like that. She'd probably hate it, too; Emerald had no delusions that she didn't hate the old Mercury. He had changed drastically in their time together, to the point where Em just wasn't sure how to handle him now. As funny as that plan was, it would accomplish nothing and she'd regret it immediately afterwards anyways. Were it _her_ Mercury, the one she had just left behind, the plan would have worked and Emerald would have gone with that off the bat without a second thought. Then again, she doubted she'd even need to resort to that if it were her Mercury.

It had only taken Emerald a few days to get here but she already missed Mercury. She was upset with herself for not taking any opportunity with Mercury earlier. Sure, they were scared because they didn't think they had long to live and didn't want to ruin things, but she was a fool to think that she could pursue her feelings once they got to safety. It took a magical portal to the past for Emerald to get to safety, and now here she was, pining for even the _chance_ to see Mercury again. It felt safe for Emerald to admit to herself now that she loved the boy—but it frustrated her that she'd never had the courage to push him to admit the same thing.

She had a chance, though. Mercury was still alive in this timeline. The million-lien question, though, was how the hell she was supposed to get through to Mercury a _second_ time, when the first time had taken years and a trip to meet the literal devil.

Emerald's thoughts, doubts, and worries swarmed her mind and muddled her senses, which revealed themselves to be a mistake. She heard the footsteps pick up their pace behind her, but it didn't register in her mind that she was walking the streets alone, that she was half-naked by normal dress standards, and that she was rather exotic-looking for Vale: a perfect recipe for some scum to try something stupid.

Or it would have been stupid had Emerald been paying more attention. She reacted, but she never got turned around before a hand wrapped around her mouth from behind. Another one wrapped around her stomach and she was lifted a few inches off the ground and drug into the nearby alley, before being set down and shoved up against a wall. She kicked and thrashed the whole way, but it did nothing. Whoever had her was stronger than she was, though given her old body, that wasn't saying much. Emerald had always been a one-trick pony with her Semblance.

_And all it would take is spinning around to make eye contact to give them a hallucination so terrible that they'll never sleep again._ She was thinking about making them experience being ripped in half by a Grimm; that was pretty gruesome, and it was a pretty easy thing for her to project. The Semblance was preloaded in her mind; she just needed a chance to use it.

Emerald's head thrashed back and bashed her assailant's nose with considerable force. The guy flinched, but not enough for Emerald to wriggle around and make eye contact. The blow should have broken his nose, but if it hadn't, it meant the bastard had Aura, which was bad news for her—it meant Huntsman, or a criminal of similar stature. _He's already stronger than me, but if he has Aura, this… could be bad._ One hand remained on her mouth, and the other snaked in between her thighs—thankfully, on the outside of her clothes, for now. He used it to grab a hold of her inner thigh and try to pry her legs open, though, so that's not so great.

Emerald remained calm, despite the situation she was in. She continuously thrashed and fought back, but she didn't have the strength to break free from her attacker's grasp, or even stop him from continuing. Em was honestly more pissed at the thought that she might have to get raped before this guy gave her the chance to use her Semblance. She threw a fit with her shoulders and flailed her arms, but couldn't shake off her attacker and couldn't spin around enough to make eye contact. The bastard was hiding his face from her each time she turned, and he didn't realize it, but that also kept him from being subjected to a crippling hallucination.

The hand that had griped her thigh released and started tugging down on her pants; Emerald's belt made progress slow, but she could feel air on more and more of her hips. _Seriously, after surviving being hunted by Team RWBY, rebelling from the Queen of the Grimm herself, and using a god-damn Relic, Emerald was about to get bent over by some nameless thug in some backwater town all because her old body was too weak to turn around and make the guy hallucinate._ Emerald's resistance faltered as she ignored what was happening to her by focusing instead on preloading her Semblance. There was no chance in hell this asshole was going to be able to rape her and then release her to flee without giving Emerald even the tiniest glimpse of his eyes, meaning that she was _going_ to make him suffer sooner or later. Emerald focused on preloading her Semblance, deciding that a Grimm mauling was far too tame of a punishment—that was only enough for _attempting_ to rape her. _This_ would call for poetic justice, and despite the situation, Emerald smirked as she imagined a scenario that forced her attacker to experience being raped by Grimm. It was inspired by some fucked-up Mistralian shit that, ironically enough, Mercury had tricked her into watching once. If that wasn't enough, she also decided to have an Ursa smash the guy's balls afterwards, and—

_You're an idiot, Emerald._

With one hand clamping her mouth and the other still trying and failing to tug her pants any lower than her hips, there was nothing stopping Emerald from reaching her holstered weapons. She grabbed one, unfolded the pointed blades to it, and swung backwards for her assailant's crotch.

The bastard pulled back and blocked the blow as if having expected it, but that didn't matter. He had released Emerald to do so and she spun around immediately. Rather than run, her attacker stood tall and Emerald came face to face with the cunt, likely trying to glare her down for daring to go for his family jewels.

_Gotcha. _

Emerald froze. Gray hair, gray eyes, a tall and lanky build, and a little bit more baby fat in his cheeks than when they last met, but that was to be expected when you went back to your seventeen-year-old body.

_Mercury._

"What the hell?" Emerald let out, more to herself than to the boy who'd just tried to accost her. She knew that Mercury grew up with an assassin for a father, so expecting any sort of morals from the boy pre-Cinder was asking too much, but randomly trying to rape passersby in an alley? That felt low, even for Mercury. He'd never mentioned anything like that before, and he certainly hadn't ever done anything like that since she'd known him—then again, when working for Cinder, you couldn't risk getting caught on anything stupid.

Em had her chance to punish her attacker with her Semblance, and her hesitation showed on her face. Mercury was frozen before her, waiting to see what move she would make. _If she put Mercury through what her Semblance was primed with, that would make it all but impossible to ever convince him to go with her. _It was already a longshot to get him to grow into _her_ Mercury, but she wasn't sure if she could live with herself if she knew that she erased any chance here. Mercury would never even consider trusting her after she made him experience Mistralian Grimm porn.

Then again, he _royally_ deserved it right now.

Confusing Emerald further, Mercury couldn't keep a straight face any longer and burst out into laughter, doubling over and holding his sides.

"Gods, Em, you should see your face right now!"

Emerald didn't know what was going on, but heat crept up in her cheeks when she realized he was laughing at her. This had all been a joke. Just another one of his stupid, _stupid_ jokes to rile her up. He _loved_ riling her up, and she hated when it worked because she felt so embarrassed. This was like that, but on an entirely new scale.

"_You_ _asshole_!" Emerald cried, smacking Mercury's head while it was at about waist-high for her. Doing so reminded her that he had pulled her pants down a little, and while the belt had caught on her sides, it had gotten pulled down a few inches and she could feel a breeze. She quickly pulled them back up and rounded back on Mercury, who was about to start crying from laughing so hard. "Do you know how horrible the hallucination I almost gave you was?!"

Mercury slowly started to come down from his laughing fit. She hated this part of their relationship, or she thought she did, but it at least felt familiar and safe. Mercury was being an ass, and she was putting up with it; things were as they should be. Emerald didn't even realize how easily she had fallen right back into their usual groove.

"I didn't realize you were so starved for touch that you'd give up after five seconds!" Mercury let out in a wheeze, fighting against his laughs to inhale air. "You practically went limp in my arms there!"

Emerald kicked him in the shin for that one, _hard_, and his wince shocked her.

"You have _legs!_" Emerald let out in a gasp, to which Mercury just grinned at her dumbly.

Then it hit her.

"Y-You know who I am?!"

It was both a statement and a nervous accusation, followed by a wary look to Mercury for confirmation.

Mercury smiled at her—a genuine, happy smile that she almost never saw from him that sent her stomach into loops—and he nodded. "Not gonna lie, I was kind of hoping that you'd still be wearing that tiara."

Emerald didn't even bother replying, instead crashing into Mercury's chest and wrapping herself around him. She'd done it. She wouldn't even have to pray that he would believe her. She wouldn't have to try to explain to him who he was supposed to be come, or why, or anything. _Her Mercury_ was here somehow, and she had found him.

"It was a Relic, not a tiara," Emerald protested weakly, her face buried into the space between Mercury's neck and shoulder.

"Whatever you say, _princess_," Mercury drawled back. She knew him so well that just from the tone, she could tell he was rolling his eyes. His arms wrapped around her—_not in a rapey way, this time,_ her mind unhelpfully supplied—and Emerald was content to stay there forever.

She wasn't alone.

Mercury would lecture her for thinking that, and he would be right. He'd been the one who tried to break her of her dependence on Cinder. To hear her go right back to forming such a strong attachment so quickly went against what he had tried to teach her do be, but she didn't care. They had escaped that life entirely; this one could be different.

"_I love you_," Emerald whispered. Honestly, it was a lot easier to say than she had expected; she'd kinda been banking on herself chickening out, and had surprised herself by admitting it to him. She was infinitely grateful that she was hiding her face by burying it into him; Em's cheeks were heating up in embarrassment, and that was the last thing she wanted Mercury to see right now.

"I-I know," Mercury replied softly. He hadn't been ready for that at all, Em could tell, but that was okay. She wasn't afraid that she was going to scare him off. Hell, she wasn't even all that concerned that he couldn't say it back to her. Emerald knew deep down that Mercury cared for her; it didn't matter to her how long it would take for him to admit that or even to realize it.

After all, they had just bought themselves all the time in the world.

"How?" Emerald changed the subject for Mercury's sake; pushing him when he wasn't ready could only backfire. She hadn't even realized her eyes were watering, and she hoped burying her face further into Mercury would hide that. "How are you… _you?_"

"I was holding on to your leg when you put the Relic on," Mercury answered. "Apparently, that means I get to come along for the ride. I could see you in that…_chamber_, when you were picking what decision to redo, but you couldn't see or hear me. The Relic told me that it didn't have to let me come back with you, but…"

"It let you anyways?"

"Guess so," he answered, shrugging light enough that he wouldn't jostle Em too much. Emerald could feel the vibrations in his chest as he spoke, and it all served to reassure her that this was really happening. It was honestly hard to believe good news anymore. "I figured you'd be sentimental enough to come find me. I've just kinda been waiting around town for a hot green-haired chick in a sports bra to show up. You're not exactly hard to spot."

"Aww, you think I'm hot," Em teased as she finally broke off the hug. A sense of normality returned at the banter.

"I mean, I just tried to take you into a back alley. If _that_ isn't a compliment, what is?"

Emerald kicked Mercury's shin significantly harder than the last time.

* * *

"Hey, nice pad," Mercury called out, setting the pizza box on top of the hotel room's microwave. He had jokingly suggested they get Mistralian takeout, and it took Emerald half a second of remembering all the times she'd had to eat that while working for Cinder to nearly bite his head off. So, pizza; always a safe choice. "Whose is it?"

"Mine," Emerald called out, altering her voice and her appearance into that of some random man in his fifties. "The name's Pompous McDouchebag the Third. I'm an important businessman and an asshole who wouldn't notice or care that a second room got added to my hotel tab."

"Uh huh," Mercury responded unimpressed, picking up a wallet sitting on the bedside table. As he expected, inside was the ID of the man Emerald had projected herself as. Didn't take much to figure out that this was their 'patron' for the night. "Luke Cuyler, huh? Heh, you weren't far off with your name, Em."

"Whatever," she called back, brushing past Mercury to grab herself a couple of slices. They didn't have plates, but they weren't paying for the room anyways, so they both decided to just lay their pizza on top of the bed. What'd it matter if it stained the covers?

"So, you wanna tell me how you got out of that pinch with Cinder?" Mercury asked, his mouth half-full of pineapple-ham pizza.

Emerald looked him dead in the eyes, and a slight shutter came over him as her Semblance applied itself. He only noticed it because of how obvious Emerald made it and, quite frankly, how often she used it on him when he pissed her off. The fact that he was expecting it and was looking for that little shimmer helped a lot, too.

Instead of answering, Emerald projected the scene that she had 'reincarnated' into onto the bed-space between them as a sort of hologram. In it, the projection of Emerald held out her pistols at Cinder in a stand-off as the men Emerald had been running away from ran past the alley. With them gone, the projection of Cinder whipped her head around in confusion as the projection of Emerald disappeared. In its place, a half-transparent Emerald walked forward, simulating that Emerald had used her Semblance to disappear. 'Emerald' reappeared, trying to climb the wall of the dead end, and Cinder closed down towards her. The real Emerald turned and flipped Cinder off, before vanishing around the street corner.

"You could have just said that," Mercury griped. "_I just used my Semblance to hide_ would have worked. I wasn't _that_ curious."

Em gave him a tiny smirk, hidden behind a slice of pizza. "More fun that way. Plus my mouth was full."

"Never stopped me from talking."

"_I know_," Em huffed. "_Nothing_ does, apparently."

"So what's our plan now?" Mercury asked, appearing as carefree as one could.

"Get your Semblance back," Emerald replied, not meeting his eyes but answering firmly. That much she had planned out, at least.

"I was talking more about tonight, what with how we have a hotel room to ourselves…" Mercury prodded her, hoping to elicit some sort of rise.

"I'm sure you were," Emerald replied, rolling her eyes and ignoring his comments. Not unexpected, but that did disappoint a small part of him. Riling up Emerald was his favorite past time. _Guess nothing can be that easy._ "I was hoping you had a plan for getting it back, or could at least help me come up with one. You killed him once, so I think you're the expert on how to do this."

"Eh, he's an assassin and an alcoholic. It won't be hard to get him drunk, and then we chain him to a chair," Mercury answered, finishing his pizza and tossing the crust towards the trash can. It hit the rim and lipped out, landing on the floor. Merc shrugged. "He's got all sorts of fun shit hidden away. There's been more than one job where he's had to extract information, so I'm sure I can make it fun. _Everyone breaks, given enough time_. Most people, only a day or two, if that; for my asshole father, maybe four or five."

"It's that simple?"

"Tie him to a chair and beat him till he gives my Semblance back," Mercury confirmed with a nod. "It's torture, not rocket science."

"Are you… sure you can handle that?" Emerald asked, giving him a worried look. He wanted to make fun of her for that—_seriously, how sappy could she be?—_but his heart just wasn't in it; couldn't bring himself to be that much of a dick.

"You're asking me if I'll be okay torturing my father for five days, after he's tortured me for seventeen years?" Mercury asked, wanting to laugh. He bit it back, though, not trying to throw it in her face. "You met me the night I murdered him, Em. Honestly, the bastard _deserves_ to die twice, in my opinion."

"You're in luck, then," Emerald responded, giving Mercury a soft smirk. He wanted to hate that smirk, but right now, he really liked it. "How would you like to see Cinder Fall face off against Marcus Black after Marcus has had a few days to prepare for her?"

Mercury was surprised, but certainly not disappointed. His smile mirrored Emerald's coy smirk.

"I've got dibs on the winner, then," Mercury added on. Emerald shrugged, and like that, their plan was set. "Hoping it's my dad. I would really love to return that abuse one last time."

"Speaking of," Emerald called out in a way that told Mercury that he had just opened a can of worms that he had nearly avoided, "is he going to be… _angry_ that you're coming home late tonight?"

"Coming home late? What, are you kicking me out?" Merc mocked, though Em didn't quite pick up on it.

"N-No, you can stay if you want. There's only one bed—" Emerald scanned the room quickly, trying to sort things out in her mind, before shaking the thoughts free. "Fuck it, we'll share. We've done weirder things anyways." Working for the Grimm came to mind.

"I'll be doing some_one_ weird, from the sounds of it—"

"_Back to the point_," Emerald spoke over Merc, cutting her eyes at him. "Is Marcus going to get angry or violent if you didn't come home one night? What if he thinks you're selling him out to someone?"

Emerald was unsure about it, worrying that she might just be paranoid, but she felt it important enough to ask anyways. Her shoulders sagged in relief when Mercury didn't even bat an eye at the question.

"Eh, I'll just tell him I was rutting some girl," Mercury answered, shrugging his shoulders, "and that I stayed till the morning for another go at it. Game knows game."

Had Emerald's glare at him been any flatter, he might have confused it for Weiss Schnee. At least Em wasn't _that_ annoying. _And thank the gods that she actually has tits; Merc would have gone mad long ago if the only eye candy he got to look at were Cinder and Salem._ There was something to be said for being able to get caught staring without fearing for your head getting chopped off… either one of them.

"I'll embellish and he won't suspect a thing. Besides, I have good material to work with, here," Merc trailed off, giving Emerald a coy smirk. "We _are_ going to sleep together, in a hotel room, after getting dinner. Hell, if I describe you, he might even think I bought a hook—"

Emerald shut him up with a pillow to the head and Mercury couldn't help but laughing as she pretended to storm off.

"I'm getting a shower," she announced in a huff, marching off into the bathroom. "And I'm _locking the door behind me_. Don't even think about doing it again, asshole."

"I wasn't," Merc lied badly, earning a flat glare from Emerald before she shut the door. He wouldn't have tried it again, mostly because since he had done it once, it wouldn't have caught Em off-guard this time. She would have been ready to disappear via her Semblance; that, or she would have had something awful to make him see instead.

There was a reason that Mercury was always looking for new ways to antagonize Emerald. Such as the alleyway earlier, though he was concerned that he might have gone a little far there. What could he say, he saw Emerald and the alley was right there; it all just lined up so perfectly. It _almost_ wasn't even his fault.

Alone for a few minutes, Mercury moved over and grabbed himself another slice of pizza, before settling down in the chair that came with the plain desk in the room. He flipped it around so he could kick up one leg and rest it on his knee, silently marveling at all the tiny sensations he could feel. Having his actual legs back was strange. His mechanical ones were fancy tech—stuff that Cinder had acquired through Watts, he later came to find out. They had sensors that plugged into his nervous system, giving him a vague sense of pressure in his legs; not good enough to feel touch or temperature, but enough that he could register blows during combat.

He missed those legs, actually. There was no way in hell he was getting in touch with Dr. Watts in this new life, though, so these flesh ones would have to do. The mechanical legs somewhat simulated Mercury's old Semblance, but having guns in his feet was a fantastic addition. Kicking people in the stomach just wasn't the same without blasting them at the same time.

Mercury shoved all other thoughts out of his mind after that and pulled out his scroll, killing time until he heard the water stop running. Emerald emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, wrapped in a hotel towel with her dried hair trailing down the back. _Or, well, those two long strands Emerald keeps trailed down the back, since the rest didn't reach past her neck._ Emerald's hair looked much better by the time they got to Beacon because it got a little longer, but her street-urchin weird-ass bowl cut did her no favors.

"What took you so long?" Mercury asked with a snicker. "Were you thinking about me?"

Emerald paused mid-step and gave Merc a suspicious look as she tried to figure out if he meant that the way she suspected he did. He absolutely did.

"I'm not sure I want to know what _you_ do in the shower, but I was actually washing up," Emerald replied dismissively as she walked over to the chest of drawers. She started digging around in it for her clothes, though Mercury suspected that it should only have taken her, like, a second or two. She _was_ homeless, technically; how many things could she really have brought with her?

Mercury's thoughts came to a complete halt when Emerald dropped the towel. She faced mostly away from him, leaving him with a view of her backside and just a taste of sideboob.

"…are you trying to get me to go take a shower?"

"I've been trying to get you to do that more often for years," Emerald joked, turning her head towards Merc to give him a smirk. It had the effect of turning her torso a little more, turning sideboob into sidenip. He struggled to look her in the eyes, which was as good as admitting defeat to Em at this moment. "_This _is all it would have taken? Huh."

Emerald turned back around and started to dress, starting with some simple shorts to sleep in… which meant that she had to bend over to put them on. Mercury spent about half a second convincing himself that he shouldn't look before he gave in. Emerald didn't go super slowly or anything, but she did seem to take her time just a little, and there was a good amount of stuff on display for Mercury.

"If I didn't know better, I would say that any girl changing in front of me wanted to fuck me," Mercury called out accusingly, almost warily. _ What was Em's angle here? _ He'd just pretended to assault her earlier, so there was no telling if this was payback. It _felt_ like payback, but he wouldn't even bother denying that he was enjoying this payback so far.

"Well, we do have a hotel room to ourselves, and you're already planning on embellishing about me," Emerald called out, digging through the drawers with her back to Merc once more. Once she found what she was looking for, she turned fully around to face him, tits out and all. She looked him up and down judgingly, and then shrugged. "Eh, I'd probably let you, if we're being honest."

Something stirred in Merc at that, and he realized that this might actually be happening. _Emerald, huh? Can't say he didn't see it coming, but he and Em were close now, and if they were going to be spending a lot more time together now that things had reset…_

Ah, who was he kidding? He hadn't taken his eyes off her chest since he turned around. Merc was completely down for this.

"I've got one rule, though," Em announced seriously, forcing him to turn his gaze upwards towards her eyes. He tried to give her a cocky grin and act unapologetic about it, but it faltered and he just looked awkward to have been caught. Emerald ignored it. "I'll only fuck a guy once he tells me he loves me."

Merc hesitated for a few moments, realizing what Emerald was getting at. She was hoping to get him to say something that they both knew he wasn't the type to say—she was trying to get him to say it back to her. That was not something he wanted to do. _Then again, all it was gonna take to get things going was saying three words._ Mercury's blood was already pumping, and it wouldn't be hard to justify a few sweet nothings, especially not if it was the only thing stopping them.

"And I have to believe him when he says it," Emerald added on, giving him a stern look to let him know that she knew what he was thinking, and Merc suddenly looked away guiltily.

_Damn, she _would_ throw that on there._ Emerald certainly knew him well enough by now to know if he lied, but he didn't even really want to try it. Even for him, that would be a dick move. That left Mercury with the option of actually saying it and meaning it, which… wasn't his style. He wasn't sure if he thought love even existed after growing up covered in welts and bruises from his father, and if it did, he sure as hell wasn't someone it would apply to. He liked Em, he guessed, and some part of him was glad to see her freed from Cinder's manipulation. If Em had asked him to admit that he _liked_ her, then he'd already have Emerald up against the wall with his tongue down her throat. He'd be willing to admit that, but… he couldn't say that he loved her.

He looked off at the ground in silence, unable to tell Em what she wanted to hear.

"That's what I thought," Emerald called out coyly. He'd been afraid that she'd be upset or disappointed in him after she had said it earlier, but it seemed that she hadn't even thought he _would_ say it. She gave him a smirk, before disappearing entirely.

"_Oh well_," Emerald's voice whispered sensually into his ear, making him flinch and whip his head to the side. The real Emerald was crouched down next to his chair—clothed in the same type of shorts and a loose t-shirt, with damp hair from the shower—and was giving him a shit-eating grin. Her eyes flicked down towards his pants teasingly. "At least you _do_ think I'm hot."

"That was low," Merc admonished, making a point to keep his leg propped up on his knee. It did a decent job of obstructing any view of how much Emerald little stunt had affected him, and not reacting to it was not giving in to it.

"_You made me think you were going to rape me earlier_," Emerald loudly shot back, exasperated, standing up to full height to admonish him.

"That was a prank and you know it," Merc dismissed with a roll of his eyes, grinning the whole time. If it wasn't, he'd be the worst rapist of all time. He never touched anything higher than her thigh and didn't even unclasp her belt when trying to 'get at her.' "We both know I didn't mean that."

"Yeah, well, I meant mine," Emerald called back softly, not bothering to look back at Mercury as she pulled back the covers on the bed. Merc went noticeably silent at her comment, to which she just rolled her eyes again. "I'm going to bed. You, uh, gonna go shower now, or are you getting in?"

He hesitated for a moment, before throwing off his shirt and making his way over to the bed. Em eyed him slightly suspiciously at that, but he was laying down and the lights were out before she could protest.

"Hands to yourself," Em called out flatly.

"Okay," Merc pretended to agree. This was Emerald they were talking about; they both knew that she'd wake up buried into his side no matter what. Isolation didn't treat her well.

Mercury bit back a laugh when it took her less than a minute to switch position and violate her own rule by curling up next to him. She probably had expected him to push back on the no-touching rule and was upset that he hadn't, which Merc found really funny.

"What happened to—"

"Shut up."

* * *

Emerald didn't like Mercury's addition to the plan, but he convinced her to go for it. There was a small chance it would work and that Mercury would get his Semblance back without having to spend days torturing his father, and it was at least worth trying it as a hailmary.

The first step was the most obvious, and the easiest: get Marcus Black drunk. Mercury had downplayed how furious Marcus would be that Mercury had dared to stay out for the night, but by coming home with booze in his arms, Merc was ensured that Marcus wouldn't hit him—for fear of wasting the alcohol. It was a tried and true strategy, one that Mercury had employed often. Marcus would be furious, but he would resign that anger to the backburner while he was preoccupied with drinking. The fact that he had recently gotten back from a mission and had nothing better to do than abuse his son meant that he'd be ready to drink as soon as Mercury showed up with the stuff.

That part went according to plan. With the help of Emerald's Semblance, acquiring a lot of alcohol from a liquor store was easy. Hard stuff, too, nothing that might fill Marcus up too quickly. Mercury showed up with liquor practically flowing from his arms, and Marcus had nearly forgotten to ask his son where he had been the previous night. Even when he did, he bought Mercury's line about shtupping some local girl easily. _Mercury seemed to be the type of kid to get his rocks off on a Tuesday and bring home hundreds of lien's worth of alcohol, go figure._

Once Marcus was plastered, step two went into effect.

"I want my Semblance back," Mercury growled, picking Marcus off the ground where Mercury had shoved him. "And you're going to give it to me."

In his inebriated state, Marcus first thought it was a joke. After all, his bitch of a son didn't pose a threat to him and had been cowed for years. If the brat let Marcus abuse him so easily, then he was just a worthless excuse for an heir to the assassin. The fact that he thought he was intimidating enough to demand his Semblance back was simply laughable.

Marcus gave in to his son's wish for a fight, though, and being drunk had leveled out the playing field somewhat. The hate in Mercury's eyes was real, as was the determination behind his attacks, but Marcus was holding back. The boy was a natural fighter and favored his legs in ways that few fighters did, but he was sloppy and inexperienced. He hadn't taken Marcus' lessons to heart, which was all the more reason he wasn't worthy of a Semblance. Those who could be killed easily when deprived of their Semblance shouldn't be allowed such a crutch, because eventually, there would come along someone who would take it away. Marcus made a name for himself because of that.

Even plastered to hell, Marcus Black had this fight in the bag, because he knew his son's three weaknesses: he relied too much on his legs, he wasn't capable of thinking ahead, and he was weak. That last one was ultimately the worst, and the one that disgusted Marcus the most. Even with victory in his grasp, Mercury would let defeat snatch him through a lack of discipline, and it was time to teach the brat that lesson.

The ploy was simple. Let Mercury think that he had won by allowing himself to be pinned to the ground with Mercury's legs straddling the man's chest. Mercury's second flaw—not planning things out—would prevent him from realizing the trap. Marcus would breach Mercury's Aura concentration with daggers into both of his knees, crippling the boy and taking away the only thing he could fight with. Then, once battered and crippled, Marcus would show the boy just how weak he really was. Mercury would writhe in pain and his weakness would cause him to let up on Marcus; he didn't have the strength or resolve to push through.

What Marcus did not realize is that it was the second time Mercury had seen that trick from his father, the first being the first time he had lost the use of his legs. That time, Marcus had been wrong about Mercury's third weakness, because even while crippled the boy forced himself to strangle his father through sheer hatred.

This time, as Marcus jabbed at Mercury's knees, Mercury jumped up and allowed the daggers to miss him. Marcus nearly stabbed himself in the sides, pulling up only to scratch at his Aura. Mercury's foot broke his nose a moment later, and the next thing Marcus knew, he was trying to focus his eyes on those of his son. He was being held up against a wall by the hem of his shirt, his Aura had nearly been broken, and Mercury was threatening to bash his head with an expensive whiskey that came in a dangerously-thick glass bottle.

"Semblance," Mercury growled, "_now!_"

"You think this proves that you aren't weak?" Marcus spat out at his son, literally, as he spat blood-tinged spittle at his son's face as an insult. "This just confirms it. You can't even face me like a fucking man. Had to get me drunk before facing me, _coward_."

"_We all have our weaknesses that we have to dominate,_" Mercury hissed venomously, quoting Marcus' own words back at him. "Yours is your bottles. If you can't overcome that, then you don't deserve _your_ Semblance. So hand over mine."

Marcus laughed in his face, a wet and broken laugh, but a cruel and vicious one nonetheless.

"Oh, such a big man you are," Marcus taunted. "You think that quoting my own words make you smart. That winning by my rules make you strong. If you're dumb enough to play by the rules of others, then you're weak without even realizing it."

Mercury's glare grew furious, and Marcus laughed at him louder.

"Look, you think you've won, and yet you just realized that you can't win my game when I set the rules. Your Semblance is gone until _I_ decide otherwise. You're weak because you're a subject of my rules, and you'll always be weak until you can make your own."

Marcus laughed as Mercury's face twisted in anger and resentment.

"Fine by me," Mercury announced lowly, dragging Marcus over to a steel chair, the kind that was sturdy enough not to be easily broken. There were already several sets of chains and straps fixed to it—how Marcus hadn't noticed that earlier, he wasn't sure—and Mercury forced him into them. When Marcus tried to resist, Mercury's fist reminded Marcus how much a broken nose hurt.

"This is your last chance. Release my Semblance, and I let you live," Mercury called out. From his voice, he already knew that Marcus didn't believe the threat Mercury was trying to build up. He spat at the boy again instead. "Have it your way. Cinder?"

Marcus' blood went cold when someone new entered through the doorway. A woman in her early twenties with black hair and a dangerous air to her. Even drunk, Marcus could spot a contemporary of his, at least when they weren't making any efforts to conceal what they were.

"You pathetic little runt!" Marcus growled at his son. "I told you to grow strong and impress me. Instead, you whore yourself out to someone on the promise of what, that they'll make you stronger? Protect you? _Pah._"

"Oh, Marcus," this Cinder woman cooed, slowly walking around Marcus' chair to force him to lose sight of her, "we're going to have so much fun. My name is Cinder Fall, and we're about to be seeing a lot more of each other."

"Fuck you and the dick you rode in on," Marcus growled bitterly, already having an idea of where this was going. His worthless rat of a son had sold him out to some rival for money or sex, and if they were half-way competent, he wouldn't be getting out of this alive. They wanted something from him, probably from his previous jobs, and they knew it wouldn't be easy to pry out of him.

There were a few things he could start doing to figure out how good this woman was, and by proxy, how fucked his shit was.

The first was the most obvious. The woman was getting way to close to him. There was an excessive amount of straps and chains around his arms and torso, and even his thighs, but the lower halves of his legs were free. As soon as she walked up to him again, he kicked her in the shin. A professional would have been baiting the attack, and an amateur would have recoiled from being kicked. The woman didn't react immediately, but she did recoil and wince in pain a little, before fixing him with a deadly glare.

"Your death just got prolonged by several hours," the woman hissed angrily. Mercury was watching him nervously, as if checking to see for something—what, Marcus didn't know.

But it was curious that there was _something_ Mercury was afraid of. Thinking back on it, the woman's reaction seemed delayed, even through Marcus' intoxication. Something was off there, and Marcus had seen enough tricks through the years to know when someone was trying to pull something over on him. With Mercury's Semblance stored, Marcus could suppress other Semblances, but had no room to take any away permanently; they had to be stored somewhere. His son had left him with just enough Aura available for Marcus to use his Semblance. After all, how else would Marcus release Mercury's?

Marcus reached deep down to what Aura he had left, engaged his Semblance, and wouldn't you know it, someone was actively using a Semblance from nearby. He could feel it. Marcus was smart enough not to look in the direction of the source, which would give away that he was on to them, but in his periphery he could tell that no one was there.

"All of this effort for my idiot kid's Semblance?" Marcus asked the woman, feigning to be giving in to the pressure. "The kid's not worth it. Take it, and take him."

Marcus released Mercury's Semblance, and the kid looked stunned that his ploy had worked. It had been years since the kid had used his Semblance, and he had _never_ bested his father. Now, he finally had his Semblance back.

Marcus howled in laughter as he ripped the Semblance away from the other person in the room, locking it deep away in the spot that Mercury's had been stored for years. His son would not get the best of him, not by a long shot.

* * *

Mercury's stomach flopped. Something was wrong.

His Semblance was back.

And Marcus was laughing at him, despite his broken nose and despite being a captive. Marcus was laughing at _him_, despite having given Mercury his Semblance back. Mercury knew what that meant, but he didn't want to explicitly _think_ the words. He didn't want to give in to the chance that he might be wrong, because if he did, it would surely go away. It didn't matter if that made sense or not, it was all he had and he stuck with it. He had to.

"M-Mercury?"

_Fuck_. Emerald's voice broke him. Something was wrong and he knew exactly what it was. He was so fucking stupid! He should have seen this coming. Mercury couldn't bear to look at Emerald, not when this was his fault.

But he couldn't bring himself to leave her alone and ignore her. He looked over to Emerald guiltily. A flash of terror in her eyes tightened the knot in his stomach even further. That terror subsided and fear, sadness, shock, and hysteria rushed in to replace it. He _knew_ that feeling. He knew that feeling and he fucking hated it. Having your Semblance torn away was having a piece of your soul forcibly removed, and it left a hole in you. It left a hole _inside_ of you, in a place that you never realized you even had anything until it was gone. Mercury barely even registered that he was, for the first time in years, whole once more now that he had his Semblance. He had to watch Emerald go through the worst thing he had ever experienced and it was his fucking fault.

But it was _Emerald_ losing her Semblance, and that made it so much worse. He'd rather have his whole Aura ripped away by Cinder's Grimm parasite or even by his father than have to look Emerald in the eyes as the only thing she had ever relied on was taken from her. Emerald had always struggled with her dependency issues, and now the only part of herself she could rely on was gone.

Mercury took two steps and launched his fist into his bastard of a father's nose, whipping Marcus' head back with a sickening crunch.

"Give it back, asshole!" Mercury screamed, the tinges of his vision going red. Marcus spat whatever blood he could and laughed limply at his son. Mercury bashed his father's face again.

And again.

And again.

And when that didn't seem to hurt the man enough, he brought his fist down on Marcus' downturned hand, smashing it against the chair's arm. With his Aura long gone now, the bones in Marcus' hand shattered in several places with more sickening crunches.

Mercury's vision tinged with red, pulsing as the blood pounded in his head.

Marcus wasn't physically able to laugh in his son's face anymore, but the fact that he stubbornly refused to die or go unconscious mocked Mercury enough. _This fuckwad has the audacity to hurt Emerald and then try to live to tell the tale?!_

Mercury's fist shook. Breaking the man's nose and hands wasn't doing the trick. He was still breathing.

Breaking his ribs would deal with that. And if the first punch didn't do it, all the better, because it would weaken him for the second punch. Or the fifth. Or the tenth.

Something held his right arm back. He tried to shrug it off but something felt off and he looked down to find Emerald there, wrapping herself around his arm to stop him from attacking the bastard. She looked scared, but it wasn't the same as before. Em had recovered well enough from the initial, soul-crushing loss of her Semblance, and was looking at _him_ in fear. Or fear for him?

Mercury's blood pounded too loudly in his ears for him to think clearly, or even hear Emerald. He looked at her confused, and she kept desperately repeating whatever it was she had said until he could hear it.

"—need to stop! Please, calm down! You can't kill him!"

"The hell I can't!" Mercury hissed back furiously. Emerald flinched—_she flinched at him._ That sobered him more than anything.

"It's okay, Merc, it's okay," Emerald whispered calmly, stepping up into his chest and cupping his face with her hands. She did it to calm him down and make him focus on her, and while he did calm down, he was still focused on the asshole who needed to pay, sitting only a few feet away.

"He's going to die the most painful death I can give him," Mercury hissed, though he took care not to look at Em when he said it. It wasn't meant about her and he'd be damned if he hurt her any more than he already had.

"Calm down, Mercury," Emerald repeated, finally getting him to look her in the eyes and truly take a breath. "_Good_. It's okay, Mercury. Just calm down and think about it."

"He took your Semblance," Mercury pointed out, his voice nearly cracking now that he was coming down from his adrenaline-fueled rage. "How are you okay with this?"

Emerald dropped her hands down from his face now that she had his attention. "This was always a long-shot. We were going to have to force him to give up your Semblance." Emerald cut her eyes at Marcus, who was trying to listen in, but was looping in and out. She returned back to Mercury quickly out of fear that Mercury would follow her eyes to his father and lose control again. "The plan doesn't change. We've already prepared for this. We'll just get my Semblance back instead of yours."

"A-Are you sure you're okay with this?"

"I don't _like_ it," she admitted, cutting her eyes dangerously at Marcus. "But only _one_ of us can be the hysterically emotional one. Guess it's my turn to be stoic and distant." She slapped him playfully on the chest at her joke. Mercury tried to laugh or even smile at it, but he couldn't bring himself to, instead giving her a weak grin. It hurt to even _try_ to smile right now.

"Now what?" he asked, not trusting himself to make a move anymore.

"Knock him out," Emerald responded softly. "We need him stable enough to survive several days of… well, torture. Plus, he needs his Aura to release the Semblance, right?"

Mercury nodded weakly to answer her question.

"Good. Knock him out, and we'll start getting ready for that."

* * *

"I… take it this isn't your first time torturing someone?" Emerald asked awkwardly as the two nibbled at their food. They were eating in a different room from where Marcus was held, mostly because it wasn't pleasant to eat in that room after a full day had passed. The night before, they had eaten their first dinner there, mostly because Mercury refused to break off his hateful glare at his father. Em was concerned about that—she had never seen Mercury _this_ intense, this furious, and the one time he had gotten close was the first time he had ever opened up to her about his father.

Still, she suspected that this was about her more than it was about Merc's dad. Mercury could hardly look her in the eye still, and when he did, he did a horrible job hiding the guilt.

"I've watched a few times before," Mercury replied, his eyes stuck on his food. "It's not… complicated. You just make them go through endless pain; everyone breaks eventually. Having all the right toys helps, though."

_Toys_, he said. Emerald imagined that the only child who would have played with these things growing up was Cinder. By "toys," Mercury meant the supplies that his father had on hand, specifically designed for torture. Marcus Black had been partial to chemical and electrical methods, meaning he had all sorts of nasty things to stick you with. Chemicals that melted your flesh, chemicals designed to attack the nerves, even bottles of concentrated pepper extract that would infuriate and burn you once applied to cracks in the skin, or sensitive places.

Mercury had been using those to compliment the real, physical torture. Like the seasoning to a sick, twisted meal.

"We're going to get my Semblance back," Emerald reassured Mercury. She wasn't sure if he needed to hear that, or if he needed to hear that she wasn't scared of losing it, but she knew it was important to keep repeating it. He seemed to ignore her every time, retreating in on himself and glaring at the nearest object that wasn't Emerald. "It's just going to take some time. I'm not worried about it. You shouldn't either."

Mercury's hands balled into fists on the table as he glared at the chips on his plate.

"Mercury, it's okay," Emerald called out softly. He wasn't listening, so Emerald reached out and placed her hands gently on top of his nearest fist. Mercury's surprise cut through his seething as he looked up at her, and Emerald gently worked his fingers loose from his fist. "Don't take it so hard. This isn't your fault."

"This _is_ my fault!" Mercury snapped, banging his other fist on the table in anger. He snapped out of it immediately afterwards, looking up into Emerald's scared eyes. "I-I'm sorry, Em. I should never have agreed to let you use your Semblance on him. I should have seen it coming—"

"That's not your fault," Emerald reassured him. "It wasn't even _your_ plan."

It had sounded like a good plan at the time. Trick Marcus into thinking that Cinder Fall had it out for him for some reason, that way when Cinder _did_ show up to recruit him, Marcus would be prepared to ambush her in retaliation. One of them would be taken out, and there wouldn't be any risk on Emerald or Mercury's part.

"You're not the one who knows him, who knows how his Semblance works," Merc cut back, dragging his eyes away. "He can only take your Semblance away while you're using it. I thought since he can only hold one, we'd be safe, but—" Mercury's hands curled back into fists, and Emerald squeeze the one her hands were still resting on to reassure him. "I'm a fucking idiot. I shouldn't have let this happen, Em."

"It's okay, Mercury. We both let it happen."

"_I _let it happen!" Mercury growled. "I did this, okay? I was stupid and you're suffering for it. Don't act like that's okay…"

He looked away from her, eyes trailing down. Merc even tried to pull his hand free of hers, but he only did so weakly, and Emerald refused to let him pull away now. She didn't say anything, which was the only way she could really get through to him right now. Emerald waited patiently, looking to Mercury until he finally looked back up at her. When he finally did, he did so hesitantly. Mercury's eyes were filled with guilt.

It struck Emerald in that moment just how hard Mercury was being on himself and, more critically, _why_. Maybe she'd already known or suspected why, but this confirmed it to her completely. This wasn't about Mercury's dad. Mercury had dealt with the reality of who his father was for years. He may not have always handled it well, but he handled it better than this. He handled it noticeably _differently_ that this.

This was about her. She was the only difference here between Mercury silently hating his father for being abused and between Mercury coming unhinged and beating his dad to a pulp. Mercury was beating himself up because he had let _her_ get hurt.

The way that he refused to speak about it, the way he awkwardly and guiltily shied away even after _trying_ to talk to her about it made her think that Mercury hadn't realized any of this himself. _Who was she kidding, of course Mercury didn't realize that he was emotionally compromised over her._

Despite the situation, Emerald found herself smiling softly. That was so incredibly _him_, and it was endearing. _It would have been adorable and the absolute perfect teasing material if the situation weren't so dire and Mercury's wounds still very raw._ Mercury was confused as to how she _could_ smile right now, but the sight relieved a lot of tension he had been holding.

Mercury pushed his seat back and rose from it. "I'm going to get your Semblance back," he announced, his voice a mix of determined, grave, and confident. "I don't care how long it takes."

He left Emerald sitting at the table, marching off for another round of returning some of his pain to his father.

* * *

"Wake up," Mercury mocked, pulling the headset off of his father's ears. He could hear what was playing from the entryway of the room, not that he could even describe the sounds. Garbled, angry static with metallic screeches, human screams, demonic whispers, and all sorts of other shit that would make your ears bleed. _Literally_, in Marcus' current case. The man hadn't even heard Mercury's taunt, so he repeated it a second time.

"You fucking worthless piece of shit," Marcus growled as venomously as he could in his current state. "I should have kicked your pregnant mother down the stairs or popped your fucking skull with a coat-hanger, you miserable—"

Marcus convulsed painfully as Mercury hit a switch, manually sending a stronger electric shock to the various wires attached to his father.

"I know that I didn't know her, but don't talk about my mom that way," Mercury threatened lowly. "As much as I would love to drag this torture out, there's a point that even I would get tired of it. Why don't you just release Emerald's Semblance and we get this all over with?"

"Which stripper is Emerald, again?"

Mercury sent another jolt through his father. The first time that Marcus had insulted Emerald like that, Mercury had nearly killed the man again, and for the second time Emerald had to stop him from doing so. That line wasn't even all that clever, and since then Mercury had gotten really tired of it. _You'd think that in four days, he would come up with a second comeback._ Mercury had come up with probably dozens with his first two days of knowing Emerald, and while they weren't all that clever, he at least had some variety.

"Right, the green-haired dime-a-dozen whore," his father wheezed, bracing for another shock.

"You need better material," Mercury commented flatly, shocking his father once again—he'd heard that one, too. Merc held the voltage for significantly longer this time, which did not go unnoticed by his prisoner.

"You retard! You've learned nothing from me and you don't deserve her Semblance back!" His father still hadn't realized the depths of Mercury's contempt towards his opinions, as he kept giving them like they would matter. Like he had any control over the situation. "You'll kill me if you're so reckless, and you'll never get it back then! You should have learned the fucking lessons I taught you."

"_Oh_, I did, believe me," Mercury answered back darkly. "Any time you tortured someone for something, I was watching—and you spent my whole life torturing _me_. I spent the whole time imagining returning the favor, so you might even say that you've been preparing me for this very moment my whole life."

Marcus glared back at Mercury hatefully, but he said nothing.

"_Keep them awake_," Mercury repeated the words his father had once instructed him with. "Sleep restores strength and sanity. Rob them of it." Mercury held up the headphones that he had used to torment Marcus with; they'd been used in tandem with a battery rigged to shock him if his heartrate fell below a certain threshold. "No sleep, constant pain, and no hope."

"That's what you do when you just want them to suffer," Marcus spat out in a laugh. "If you want something from them, you—"

"You use their hope against them," Mercury answered, unimpressed, which wiped the smile off Marcus' face. "See, the thing is, I'm not planning on bargaining with you. I'm not trading your life for Emerald's Semblance. I'm trading your _death_ for Emerald's Semblance."

Marcus went still, staring at Mercury in equal parts shock and anger.

"Hold out as long as you feel like it. Every second is going to hurt more than the last, I guarantee it. But you don't get to die until Emerald is whole." Mercury knelt down next to his father, putting them at eye-level. "Do you get it now?"

"You miserable wretch!" Marcus exploded, fury boiling over. He seemed enraged at the mere thought that his son would do something he did not want or predict, that Mercury was somehow more than the worthless hanger-on he'd been cursed with for years. And the kid had the nerve to go through all of this just to kill him?! "You ungrateful cur. You—!"

Mercury got tired of the petty insults. His father was all smoke and no fire. A fist to the mouth forced Marcus to reset himself.

"Your mother was a whore," Marcus spat out. There was no angle to it anymore. Perhaps Marcus had finally realized that Mercury wasn't vying for his father's approval, and that he wasn't doing this just to make a point. Mercury didn't care about Marcus in the slightest, and now that Marcus saw that, he dropped his arrogant attitude. Neither of them knew what Marcus had left once that was removed. "You're not my son. You were never good enough to be my son! Your real father is probably a stray dog or a dimwitted crackhead or a crippled Ursa that your horny mother wrapped her legs around!"

Mercury sat there, shaking his head idly. He wondered why Marcus was so fixated on throwing that in his face. Did he think it hurt Mercury to hear that? He had to, right? There was no way he'd try to twist the knife so much if he didn't think it bother Mercury on a deep, emotional level. Mercury had thought that he had finally broken through to Marcus the depths of his contempt, but it appeared he was wrong. He needed one more push.

Mercury obliged.

"I hope you're right about that." It was long overdue to show Marcus just how little he meant to Mercury. _And this time, he would get to see Marcus' face when it finally clicked._ "I hope _anyone_ else is my father. It means that I get to wipe every trace of you from this world, seventeen years past due."

* * *

Marcus hadn't spoken again after Mercury's last session with him. He had the look of a man who finally realized that he'd made his last mistake. He sat there and awaited execution now.

Mercury insisted that Emerald wouldn't have to do any of the torture herself, realizing that Emerald didn't quite have the stomach for it. He wasn't wrong about that—Emerald had a difficult time at the Fall of Beacon, spending most of it trying to suppress her thoughts so she wouldn't show weakness to Cinder, but all the death and suffering was… intense. Mercury was more desensitized to it, and she was visibly grateful to him that he had made the decision to spare her from it. All she had to do was watch him and ensure he stayed awake.

Marcus was so different from the last shift she'd had him for. There was no fight left in him. All he had done was sat there for two hours, staring off despondently at the wall. Emerald had taken Marcus' headphones off of him and he hadn't noticed.

That had been over an hour ago.

Without warning, a rush shot down her spine, and something warm filled her chest. Power surged through her, and the hole that had been left in her was filled. _She had her Semblance back_. The realization took her breath away, and she nearly flexed her Semblance on the spot just to check. She caught herself at the last moment; Emerald didn't think that Marcus was in any position to steal it a second time, but it wasn't work risking.

"Tell Mercury—"

Emerald cut Marcus off with a bullet to the forehead. The man's Aura crackled and fizzled out. Emerald pulled the trigger a second time.

She had heard their fight earlier. It had taken everything in her not to come in there and beat the man to a pulp herself when she heard that. How _dare_ he say that to Mercury?! Had he not hated his son enough in his miserable life?!

All Emerald had ever wanted was someone to love her, and she thought not having that was the worst thing imaginable. She'd quickly decided that having someone who _should_ love you hate you passionately was so much worse. It hurt her to think about Mercury growing up with that. If Cinder had ever showed such contempt—no, _hatred_—for her, Emerald feared that she would have blown her own brains out. Mercury had grown up through that.

He deserved so much more than that.

_Gods, Emerald wanted nothing more than to make Marcus suffer even more before killing him. _Marcus deserved _nothing_. He didn't deserve last words, or a final wish. Nor the chance to potentially redeem himself in some small way. He should die as pathetically as he lived, and Emerald didn't regret in the slightest robbing him of whatever he was going to say.

This was the first life that Emerald had directly taken, which was no insignificant feat considering all she had gone through without doing that yet. She certainly didn't have a taste for killing, but she enjoyed putting Marcus down. Especially if it saved Mercury from having to do it again.

Mercury burst in the room a few moments later, having been woken by the gunshots. He looked to her in a frantic panic.

"What happened!?" His eyes made it to Marcus, and Mercury assumed the worst: that Marcus had escaped his punishment without releasing Emerald's Semblance. "What!? How did he do that? We searched him! He was tied down! He—"

"_Mercury_," Emerald called out calmly. "It's okay. I have my Semblance back. I-It's over."

It took him a few seconds to register the words, but when he did, a great weight released from his shoulders. He nearly fell over. The pure relief from his guilt shone on his face, and the sight resonated deeply with her.

Mercury wrapped Emerald up protectively a moment later, hugging her into him tightly and burying his face into the top of her head.

Emerald returned the hug and let herself enjoy it for all it was worth. After a few moments, she felt moisture on the top of her head, and the thought that _Mercury_ was so relieved he was crying shook her to her core.

She needed to help him, _now._ Not just for selfish reasons, though those certainly existed, but because it wasn't good for Mercury to avoid this for so long. He needed to come to terms with how he felt, with their relationship, with who they were to each other. It would only hurt him if he waited any longer. He couldn't afford another episode like this, where he didn't understand that he had lost control because he let her get hurt. They might not get lucky the next time.

Sure, there was a selfish element to it, too. She _wanted_ Mercury to realize. Emerald already had, after all. She'd even admitted it. But she was concerned for Mercury much more than she simply wanted this for herself.

"Mercury—"

She didn't get the chance. Mercury pulled her even tighter into him, holding onto Emerald for all he was worth. They practically melted into each other's arms.

"_I love you, Em_."


End file.
